Nesrie
2834
See you’re still doing it. You keep trying to use the word “typical” as a way to enforce your cultural norm. You have a number of people here telling you it NOT typical where they live or work to do that. It is not the norm to address people by their last name here. And not that it should matter at all, I do not live CA. Now having said that, that doesn’t mean what you do or are used to is wrong in anyway, it just means there is shouldn’t be an auto assumption that someone is trying to be disrespectful by addressing someone by their first name; it might just be a cultural misunderstanding in some cases.
Well here she would be introduced as Meryl Streep and then everyone would say hi Meryl in theory. Because she is celebrity, who knows. I know Kristi Alley and Johnny Depp have property around here, and they are reference by their full name, but when that is discussed, we haven’t already been talking about the subject for almost 8 weeks straight. If they just said Johnny was seen at the airport, we’d have to say who.
Aleck
2836
Nesrie, I honestly can’t tell here if I’m being trolled exquisitely or if you’re serious. Assuming the latter, there’s actually a whole field of study (linguistic sexism) that’s dedicated to how language can and is used is in sexist sense. One of the more common ways that people are subtly insulted is by denying their achievements and/or status (and that’s not directly related to race or gender, but is a common means used to discriminate on race or gender lines). This is often done through the use of addressing someone solely through the use of their first name, rather than via their title. It’s been 20 years since I studied any of this in college, but there was a ton of research available even then on how women in academics were routinely referred to by their first name (and men were given the honorific), and even on how female political leaders were (not so subtly) belittled by being referred to solely on a first name basis.
I’m not saying that’s normative in every context, obviously, but it certainly is in most business contexts, particularly in most Western business contexts. The immediate response, of course, by most people when they are introduced as “Dr. Einstein” is “please, call me Albert,” but it’s a sign of respect to be introduced or to have the initial contact as “Dr. Einstein.” Similarly, when you’re writing about someone to whom you wish to convey respect, it’s a little unusual to refer to them solely by their first name. Think about it this way – if you’re a fledgling academic (as Sarkeesian is), you probably want people to use the respectful form of address when they’re talking about you, rather than the familiar – especially people who have never met or interacted with you.
I’ll grant that a discussion board is a bit of an odd duck – not exactly a business interaction, but also not exactly hanging out with friends over cocktails. I suppose it’s up to you to determine how you want to address a person, but I have absolutely zero doubt that if you spend an afternoon researching linguistic sexism, you’ll realize that there’s a whole lot written (whether of value or not) making my point.
If you’re trolling me, well, my hat is off to you! In a post-Koontzian world, I never know on Qt3 whether someone is trolling or not.
And totally unintentional, I swear! Please return to your regularly scheduled discussions.
Nesrie
2837
No I am serious. Since we’re talking about studies, there a lot of studies on just the terms norm or typical or common sense or anything of that nature since a lot people think it’s a commonality that is not an actual commonality. As a member of the healthcare industry, let me clarify something for you though. A physician or doctor (not just medical obviously) is what you are; an MBA, a BA, a BS is not; they’re things you have. So referencing the Dr. piece is actually an entirely different topic. Anita does not have a doctorate, so no one is stripping her of her earned title, and she doesn’t have anything that you would put in front of her name. So she’s not earned the Dr. piece that she is free to take or dismiss at will. What we’re talking about is how people choose to address her and whether or not they’re taking anything away by doing so. What I am pointing out, in a nutshell… is your culture is not universal. And since it is not universal, it’s not a given that motivations are universal either.
Critical Distance pointed me to a nice article about the convergence of games and the military (a topic i’m quite interested in):
‘Call of Duty: gaming’s role in the military-entertainment complex’:
Six months after Dave Anthony left his job as a writer and producer on the video game series Call of Duty, he received an unexpected phone-call from Washington DC.
That week, the caller, Steve Grundman, a former Pentagon official who served in a succession of appointments at the US Department of Defense during the 1990s, had been watching his son play Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. “Grundman told me that he’d been struck by the realism and authenticity in the game and in particular the story,” says Anthony. “So struck by it, in fact, that he’d been compelled to track me down.”
The game, which has been played by more than 20 million people since its release in 2012, is split between two settings: the final years of the Cold War in the late 1980s and an imagined second Cold War conflict in 2025. In the latter scenario, the conflict is defined not by mutually assured destruction via nuclear missiles, but rather by system-crashing cyber-attacks, capable of toppling the Stock Exchange or turning a fleet of drones against their own country. Grundman believed that the game’s imagined conflict was unusually credible for a work of military fiction. He invited the writer to visit the capital and join a panel of experts who were due to discuss the future of real-world modern warfare.
For what it’s worth, I work in business (specifically accounting, but my job puts me in quite a bit of contact with lawyers, construction firms, architects, asset managers, etc.) and almost never have I seen someone referred to by their last name once the first introduction is out of the way. You’d get a weird look and be laughed at if you called our CEO by anything other than his first name or nickname around the office.
Aleck
2840
I would agree. However, since we’re talking about discussions of a professional with whom we are (I’m assuming?) not personally acquainted, there’s a strong argument to be made against using someone’s first name. I’m not saying it’s universal, but within the western context, it’s pretty close to it when you’re talking about someone with whom you are not acquainted. That said, you clearly feel differently, and you clearly feel that it’s your intention (rather than how another might interpret your intention) which is most important. I can buy and understand that; If we’re going to apply that standard, however, I think RickH’s “Sark” is just as appropriate, since he didn’t intend to be disrespectful, he just prefers to use an abbreviation of a longer name.
Yup. I agree, once you’re acquainted with someone. If you’re talking about someone with whom you’ve never met, however, do you usually refer to them by their first name, alone, or by <title> <lastname>? I’m genuinely curious; I currently work with various members of Congress and Administration officials (along with more lawyers than you can shake a stick at!), and honestly it would be a pretty huge breach to refer to someone you’ve never met by their first name. The reason it’s a particular sticking point with me at the moment is that I see it happening all the time – but almost exclusively to female colleagues and officials. When two officials are of the same level, the female is much more likely to be referred to as <firstname> rather than <title> <lastname> when being discussed in the third person, even by people who don’t know the officials personally.
Anyway, apparently this is my pet peeve, and everyone else is fine with “Anita” and presumably “Sark” or any other nickname as long as no offense is intended. I can live with that. Sorry to have derailed this in a most pedantic way and please, let’s go back to discussing substance!
Here in northern Australia, you refer to everyone as “mate”. For example “How’s it going, mate?” “I’d like to buy those fine wallabies off you, mate!” “Is that crocodile friendly, mate?”
Then when you become really well acquainted with that person, you start calling them “cnt". For example "You downed that beer in 5 seconds, you mad cnt!” “Pass me another beer, you lazy cnt" "Get fcked, c*nt” (admittedly the latter one can be harder to get right, and may be misinterpreted as being unfriendly unless you use just the right larrakin tone of voice).
However, Aussies who have tried this form of friendly address in other countries, such as London in the United Kingdom, have usually met with a frosty response. We have yet to understand the bizarre ways of foreigners.
In my experiences, the last name is pretty much only used by yourself or someone else who is introducing you at the beginning of a meeting. I introduce myself giving my first and last name, they do the same, and then it’s all first names from there. Pretty much the only exceptions are when there are multiple people present with the same first name, or if there could be some ambiguity of just who you were referring to.
kedaha
2843
If there’s a thread in the Movies forum about Keanu Reeves, people quickly (instantly) revert to just typing out Keanu.
Not because they know him.
Not because they’re trying to disrespect him.
Simply because it’s clear which Keanu people are talking about and it feels strange to constantly type Firstname Lastname over and over.
By all means, do keep telling all the people pointing out that your absolutes on how right and correct your opinion is - might not be quite as true as you like to portray it.
Well, it depends on context. (Materials science here…) If you know the guy, then sure, first names. However, if you don’t or don’t interact with them a lot, then titles still get used. I don’t know of anyone that refers to their profs as “First name”. And despite having been in the department for 8 years, since I’m still at the postdoc level (don’t ask…) I’ll refer to the folks I don’t regularly work with by their titles.
People I work with… well… it just gets tedious if everyone’s a Dr. or Professor…
This is a far more interesting discussion than the other continuous merry-go-round, so let me ask:
I -am- a doctor because I have a PhD, but if I just had my MS I would just have a degree? That strikes me as a totally arbitrary dividing line, frankly.
(Mind you, I’ve no clue what the equivalent of “Dr.” would be for an MS, so it may be a bit of a poor example. But why is my having a PhD a state of being, but my having a masters a state of acquisition? They seem like the same basic class of things (though, to be sure, there’s a difference in relative achievement).
Nesrie
2846
I am certainly no expert. There are MD doctors and PH.D doctors but all can be addressed as Doctor, Dr.
In healthcare and academia, Dr. seems to be used a lot, but like I said, where obtained my degree most did not use it. Outside those two fields, it seems less consistent when it’s used because the layman can become confused or socially it’s just not wanted. What’s important though is not to see a string of letters after someone’s name like MBA, PMP, etc which some of our consultants showed up with. That’s just odd. An MBA is something you have but you’re not called a masters or anything; it’s not a title but check mark on a resume. Now why it came to be that way, I have no idea. I am pretty sure it’s still a debated topic, interestingly enough… especially when you have nurses who have Ph.D’s but are not M.D’s so may not be addressed as doctor in a medical setting to avoid confusing patients, sometimes, and then there are the doctors of law, as in why don’t call lawyers doctor? Juris Doctor is literally doctor of law.
I am trying to think how the title is used in games, and I don’t think I’ve played enough games that involve those kinds of characters to remember.
I really want a PhD, mostly so I can make people address me as “Doctor”. Does that make me a bad person?
Only if you insist on putting it on your credit cards and insist that strangers who have zero reason to give a shit call you that instead of your name.
By those random examples you would in fact be a dickbag.
‘Are there lines games shouldn’t cross?’:
Can a dev go too far with violence? What about moral responsibility? Laws aren’t the answer, but what is? Rami Ismail, Warren Spector and more discuss
Video game violence has been in the spotlight for over two decades now. When Senator Joe Lieberman chaired a subcommittee in 1993 after seeing the violence in Mortal Kombat, the mainstream media started paying close attention. And just five months later, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) was born and assigned Mortal Kombat an “M” for Mature rating. This was undoubtedly a good thing. In the years following, the board continued to tweak its ratings and in combination with retail partners it’s become one of the best systems for keeping inappropriate content from our youth (as ranked by the FTC).
However, in the last 5-10 years that I’ve attended E3 and other trade shows, I’ve seen wave after wave of intensely violent content. In previous roundtables with my GamesIndustry.biz staff, I’ve referred to it as the Michael Bay-ification of the games business. There’s a lot of eye candy, lots of fighting and plenty of explosions; but as veteran designer Sid Meier pointed out, the industry doesn’t need to push that sort of content anymore. “I think we got people’s attention. We can make good games now,” he said.
Aleck
2850
Actually, I think this was covered upthread a ways when talking about celebrities (and others) building a brand based on a first name basis. I would argue that Keanu has definitely done this, as have numerous other celebrities. It’s easier when someone has an usual name like Keanu or Winona, of course, but even Jack (Nicholson) is something of a first name brand.
Totally agreed. Colleagues and folks you work with day to day, in the modern American context just about everyone uses the familiar. I clearly didn’t make that point strongly enough in my original post!
Anyway, I’m going to try to let this drop now. Suffice it to say there’s plenty of difference of opinion here, and while I’m certain a few hours with Google Scholar could turn this into a mini-flamefest, I honestly don’t care enough one way or the other.
kedaha
2851
You could have saved everyone who is going to read your post time by simply writing ‘<In this post I shall write nonsensical ramblings to justify a silly absolute statement I made earlier in the thread>’.
I haven’t seen a single person agreeing with you thus far, yet you still perpetuate the nonsense that in THE ENTIRE WORLD EVERYONE REGARDS FIRSTNAME LASTNAME THE SAME WAY YOU DOOOOOOOO.
If you’ll PM me your e-mail, I’ll be happy to forward you each and every offer I get to earn (yet another) PhD online.
As for calling others Dr., though, you might be disappointed. Amongst peers, nobody I know retain the honorific because it’s friggin’ pretentious as hell. EVERYONE’S a Dr., nothing special about your doctorhood. (Doctorship?)
So it’s really only useful for one’s mother to have a title to throw around (ask me about how confusing it is when you’re in the hospital with your mother and she casually throws out mention of “Dr.” and then the physician asks “What’s your specialty?” “Oh, I’m not a medical doctor, I was just too unmotivated to EVER LEAVE SCHOOL!”) and for when people whose opinion you probably don’t nor ever will care about use it as a token signifier of respect or fear.
The only time I’ve ever been referred to as “Dr.” by a group of peers that I cared about was in the 15 minutes immediately following my dissertation defense, because that meant I’d earned the degree. That goes away really fast; I don’t suggest becoming a Dr. just for that 15 minutes of glory!
ShivaX
2853
But then you can respond when someone says “Is there a doctor in the house!?”
Though if your degree isn’t in medicine it’s about to get awkward.
